How Much Sleep Do You Need

November 14, 2016

Everybody needs sleep. But sometimes, due to busy schedules, you tend to cut it short. It sounds logical that you take less sleep so you can start early on your activities. In reality it may render you less productive. Cutting off even half an hour of your sleep time affects your thinking and alertness. Your energy level also goes down, and anxiety gets to you in an easy way.Scientific studies show that adults sleep an average of only six hours per day. Most people try to get by sleeping between 6 and 7 hours only. The one popular reason for this is that they have a busy daily life. They work late and sleep late. They wake up early because they have a lot of things to do.

According to the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, 37 percent of adults ages 20-39 and more than 40 percent of adults ages 40-59 have short sleep durations. Moreover, 30 percent of all adults reported that they sleeping for less than 6 hours a day.So how much sleep do you need? More importantly, what benefits will people reap when the needed hours are met?

To address a problem, it must first be acknowledged that one exists. With that said, here’s a chart of the number of hours of sleep that a person needs depending on his or her age:

New born to 2 month old babies – 12 to 18 hours

3 month old babies to 1 year old – 14 to 15 hours

1 year old to 3 years old – 12 to 14 hours

3 years old to 5 years old – 11 to 13 hours

5 years old to 12 years old – 10 to 11 hours

12 years old to 18 years old – 8 ½ to 10 hours

Adults – 7 ½ hours to 9 hours

If you aren’t meeting the hours that correspond to your age bracket, then you’re suffering from sleep deprivation or lack of sleep. While it may be hard to change the erratic sleeping schedules that you’ve spent a good chunk of your life with, it’s not impossible. With enough commitment and better time management, it can be done. Besides, there are plenty of positive things to look forward to if you can pull it off.The truth is that the sleep quality you get at night affects your behavior for the next day. Your productivity goes up, your energy level escalates, and your physical function increases. You feel better as a whole. On the flip side, if you do not get enough sleep, the opposite of all these happens.

If you meet the needed hours, you wake up ready to take on everything that comes your way. Moreover, having enough sleep translates to the rest of your body getting the rest it needs. But there is one part that does not rest – your brain.Your brain handles all the restorative processes your body undergoes. If you get a full sleep for the night, the brain makes a complete restoration of your body. Cutting off some sleep time limits the brain’s ability of restoring your body’s functions. Thus, it’s better to shoot for the higher end of the spectrum when it comes to sleeping hours.

Bear in mind that the low end numbers in the chart signify the number hours of sleep you can get by. But if you want to feel fully recharged, you need to get the most number of hours of sleep in the chart. It allows you to function longer in the day.Six hours of sleep is not enough for an adult.Needless to say, there is no truth in the popular notion that adults only need 6 hours of slumber. Six hours of sleep is not enough for an adult.